3-Day Startup

This past weekend I got to go to an amazing experience called 3-day startup. From Thursday to Saturday I worked with people in IDiploma to learn how to start a business. During the three days, I brainstormed ideas with others, voted on them, got into groups, pitched our idea multiple times, and got help from mentors who had experience as entrepreneurs.

The group that I was in did something called Fashion Box. Fashion would be a monthly subscription box of clothing, sorta like Stitch Fix. The difference is that when you sign up you get a box, and you do a spring cleaning of your closet. Then you send the clothes you never wear back to the company. After that, you’d get a box of clothes, like a mini wardrobe, that you could wear for a month, and send it back at the end of the month. We’d use a mix of clothes that we buy from fashion companies and the sent in clothes from our subscribers. When the clothes got worn a certain amount of times they would be donated to people in need. Our group was a mix of freshman (Skyler, Caroline, and I) and juniors (Maxine and Colton) so it was cool to

Our group was a mix of freshman (Skyler, Caroline, and I) and juniors (Maxine and Colton) so it was cool to be able to work with others outside of our grade. The best part of this experience for me was getting outside feedback with mentors, interviews, and pitches. On Saturday, everyone got to go out into the community and interview some people about things that pertained to our business. It was cool to hear what people said and how they reacted to certain questions. Also the same day, everyone got to talk to mentors who had had experience in business or entrepreneurship. After this, we took all the feedback and used it to help make pitches. We did an intermediate pitch on Saturday first, which was a bit rough and stressful because it was everyone’s first one, and a final pitch on Sunday. The pitch on Sunday was in front of all the students, parents, and a panel of entrepreneurs.

After having this experience I have discovered the value of feedback and having multiple times to try something so if you mess up you can learn from it and try again. You might have to change your idea multiple times to get it right, and feedback helps you do that. Even now I don’t think my group’s idea is perfect, but if we ended up working on it further in the future, maybe we could change things and make it work. This was a very valuable experience to me and I’m very happy that I got to go through and see how to almost start up a business.

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About This Blog

Hey! My name is Anna and I am a sophomore at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School. I’ve made this blog originally for a course at my school called Idiploma, which is a period where you learn how to be a better innovator, and if you want to know more about it, click the link. I now post some stuff about school in general too. On this blog, I will be posting what I’m learning, working on, some finished products, and reflections about the things that happen during school.